


in the heat of it

by orphan_account



Category: Rick and Morty
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Implied Mpreg, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-12
Updated: 2017-07-12
Packaged: 2018-12-01 02:00:18
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,115
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11476236
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: To say he’s panicked, would be beyond an understatement. Panic cannot even begin to describe the suffocating anxiety that grips vice like at his chest.





	in the heat of it

...

To say he’s panicked, would be beyond an understatement. Panic cannot even begin to describe the suffocating anxiety that grips vice like at his chest.

This couldn’t be happening.

But there it is, as clear as the letters written on his pill packet, Tuesdays and Wednesdays heat suppressant pills sit nestled in their little plastic containers. He couldn’t have been so foolish to forget two nights. But he did and he couldn’t really hold himself culpable, The Flesh Curtains had been playing a mean concert—a sick gig that unfortunately got broken up by the Gromflomites and the Federation’s lackeys.  They’d spent all of Tuesday night fighting them off and all of Wednesday losing their trail.

It wasn’t an excuse, it couldn’t even begin to become one. He’d dealt with the Federation before but he always remembered to take his pills—heat wasn’t something he was willing to risk.

But here he is, locking himself in their cheap apartment bathroom, sweat clinging his tank top to his skin as he shoves the useless pill packet into his sweatpants pocket. The sickening feel of his heat already washing over him, hot and silken like slipping into a hot tub, his stomach knotting with it. He hadn’t gone through heat in over sixteen years, the last time he’d been fifteen, vulnerable in his youthful naivety, easily knocked up by some stray alpha whose name he hadn’t even known.  His father had kicked him out of the house, labeled him a slut because what alpha now would pay money for him as their mate—he was used goods. After her birth, he’d given his daughter up for adoption—fought the omegan pull of attachment upon seeing her soft round cheeks and dusty blonde hair—would have gotten an abortion but the dimension he lived in offered little to no rights for omegas and the act itself was considered highly illegal. He hadn’t been old enough or matured in his intellect to discover the ways of inter-dimensional travel yet.  He started heat suppressant as soon as he was healthy able and jumped dimensions to a world where omegas had reproductive rights as soon as his growing knowledge allowed him.

He vowed he’d never have to go through any of it again.

Heat made him weak. Omegas were weak. And he loathed what omegan behavior instilled within him. In dimensions where their dynamic existed, most Rick’s were fortunate enough to be born alphas and he’s one of the unlucky few handed a terrible deck of cards. He could pretend though, suppress his heat for years, sprits himself every morning in a layer of artificial alpha scent, walk and talk with a swagger that most omegas didn’t carry—anything to be something he fundamentally isn’t.

It’s all blowing up in his face now, his crumbling façade, as he pants heavily in front of the cracked bathroom mirror. He splashes his face with cold water, shivering at the feel of it against his overly warmed skin, his legs beginning to tremble.

…

Rick stumbles out of the bathroom in a daze, light headed and heady, blood pounding in his ears like an angry drum. His skin is itchy, craving for another hand peeling him apart piece by piece. He’s hungry, empty and aching, yearning to be used and filled. He needs an alpha. He needs a knot.

His senses are over heightened, sharpened by his heat, colors vibrant before his eyes, bright and glowing with each beat of his heart. The smells around him thick and pungent as they assault his nose, the stale scent of old beer cans scattered across the floor bitter on his pallet, the earthy scent of Squanchy’s recently washed fur ticklish as he breathes, the soft floral scent of Birdperson’s feathers drawing him in like a drug. It’s overwhelming and he’s dizzy with it, knees giving way as his ass meets the carpet.

He doesn’t have a chance to take a breath, to find his footing again—even if he had the strength to stand—before Birdperson is sweeping towards his side, the gust from his wings kissing Rick’s skin.

Birdperson shows no outward signs of being concerned, face as blank and voice as monotone as ever. But Rick knows from experience and years of being in the other man’s presence that Birdperson is currently fretting over his welfare. And Rick really wishes he wouldn’t fret over him. He hates fretting. “Are you troubled, Rick?”

“He’s Squanched. He’s going into heat,” Squanchy chimes from his seat on the couch. Rick has no doubt Squanchy can scent it on him—his home planet Squanch having similar mating cycles. Rick wants nothing more than to punch his lights out, yet the hormones surging hot and fiery through his veins fight his inner will, his body unable to cooperate.

“F-fuck you,” Rick pants, eyes going unfocused as Birdperson lifts him easily from the floor. He goes willingly into the openness of his arm not that the he has any other option, the fragility that comes with heat leaving his legs heavy and dampened.

Birdperson isn’t an alpha, his species unfamiliar to the omegan mating cycles—although they were more likely to mate in spring and they did form close soulbonds. But there is a certain strength in him, a solidity in both his character and frame that leaves Rick’s omegan heart unsteady and his throat dry. They’d fucked before—they fucked a lot and frequently. Birdperson isn’t Rick’s only lover but Birdperson is the only constant in Rick’s life. He isn’t a one night stand. Pers is as close to a mate as Rick would ever have, though Rick will never admit this or allow himself to label what they had—not that they had anything. Foolish omegas took mates, for they easily gave into their subservient animalistic nature. Fragile omegas took mates, because it was forced upon them by society. Rick is neither foolish nor fragile, and he’ll let nothing be forced onto him—not anymore.

Slick wets the fabric of his sweats, dripping down his thin thighs, as Birdperson holds him close to his warm broad chest. It’s that protectiveness that appeals to Rick’s deeply buried omegan tendencies, an unrestrained moan leaving his chapped lips. It’s a shame he tries to deny, with the help of pills and a long stubborn stance but with his missing dose of hormones and resulting encroaching heat it’s bubbling up, threatening to rip him open and spill out.

“I-I can fucking walk by myself, Pers,” Rick whimpers, his words carrying less harshness and weight than he intended. He despises the tenderness and need heat brings out of him, how it erases and shatters everything he’s fought against.

“You have already fallen once today, Rick. It would be unwise to allow you to walk again. You are unsteady on your feet.”

“Fuck you,” Rick hisses, little threat behind his words as Birdperson carries him to the small bedroom they share—Squanchy slept on the couch, the little fucker didn’t need a bed.

Birdperson lays him down like he’s porcelain—brittle glass that will break at any second—and Rick wants to scream a complaint but only a soft hesitant moan escapes him as Birdperson runs a reassuring hand down his arm. He places an all too soft kiss to Rick’s brow, a gentleness a less heat drunken Rick would have protested. But he’s starved of it in this moment, wants to drown and suffocate beneath the weight of Pers’ body. Desperately he claws at Birdperson’s feathers, drawing him as close as their body will allow, frantic lips searching out contact only to meet air as Pers pulls away.

“Try to sleep it off, Rick,” Birdperson says, carefully arranging Rick back against the pillow. Rick obeys unwillingly, eager in this state to take and follow orders, cursing the submissiveness this brings out of him. “You will be thankful when it passes.”

…

Heat is hell and Rick curses the dimensions where he doesn’t have to deal with it. After years of skipping the thrice yearly release hormones, it’s torment.  He’s a grenade, a bomb finally exploding, everything he held back erupting and bursting free. It’s a nuclear meltdown. An average heat lasts twenty four hours and twenty hours in, Rick knows denying his body for so long—the negligence of his release—it won’t be over shortly. He’s in for a long arduous torture.

…

He loses track of day and night, time blurred like ink on wet paper. He can’t count how many times he frantically made himself come, thin fingers working in and out of his wet and quivering entrance. But it’s never enough, he yearns to be filled, for the bursting warmth of another’s seed emptied with in him. His womb screaming with it’s emptiness.

He falls asleep as he works himself in hand.

He wakes restless, exhausted, and unstated.

…

A glass of water sits on his bedside table, condensation clinging to the glass in the room’s humidity, it pools, leaving a wet ring on the table’s wooden surface. Rick’s mouth waters at the sight of it, his tongue dry and throat scratchy—Pers must have left it for him while he was asleep.

Weakly he reaches out for the cup, fingers fumbling on the wet surface. He swears as it falls from his grasp, spilling out across the stained carpet. Rick in his thirst and dehydration is tempted to lap in from the carpet’s thickly woven fibers, but in the last remaining thread of his rationality he’s able to restrain the urge. He can’t allow himself to give into every animalistic craving.

“Pers—“ He calls softly, detesting the neediness and vulnerability in his voice.

It takes only a moment before Birdperson is pushing the bedroom door open, face stoic as he takes in the dropped glass and Rick’s stricken expression.

“I will get you more water.”

…

He downs three glasses of water, gasping for breath when he’s finished, Pers watching him carefully all the while. Rick shivers beneath his stare. He’s close enough that Rick can hear the beat of his heart, feel the ruffle of his soft feathers as he turns. His scent is intoxicating, fragrant wood and leaves, and Rick wants to devour it, melt into the warmth of Birdperson’s skin. Pers hand is strong and sure, finger wide and short as they grasp the cup from Rick’s hand carefully placing it back on the bedside table. And Rick wants nothing more than to feel those hands around his waist, inching across his ribs and chest. He wants those hands to break him. He wants those hands to heal him.

His dick twitches in interest, slick wetting the already dampened sheets beneath him.

“Pers—“

“Yes, Rick?” Birdperson says, unphased as Rick crawls towards him, settling himself like a cat on Pers’ wide lap. He’s naked, doesn’t recall when or how he lost his clothes, his skin sticky with sweat, his cum, and slick. But he doesn’t care, his want an angry persistent thing, and he is a puppet beneath it’s strings, tugged and controlled to do it’s bidding.

Arching with a purr he presses his lips to Birdperson’s round bare stomach, tasting salt on his tongue, long fingers searching out the soft skin beneath his feathered kilt, “I-I need you baby, need you to fuck me real good.”

Much to his frustration his fingers have little chance of finding their goal, Birdperson rising to his knees, sending an unsuspecting Rick topping off onto the sheets.

“Your advances are unwise.”

“W-why the fuck is that?” Rick pouts as he numbly rises from the sheets, wobbly as he kneels to meet Pers’ height. He lets his fingers drift across Birdperson’s chest, over the length of his shoulders and down to where his wings meet his back, scratching at the growth of feathers there as he knows Pers likes. A human alpha would have long since gave into Rick’s pleas, would have lost control and went into rut at the saccharine scent Rick’s heated body omitted. But unfortunately for Rick—or perhaps a fortune Rick is unwilling to see—Pers was neither human nor alpha.

“Although it may be my first time experiencing you in such a state, from my understanding of your species nature, you may not have the clearest of minds.”

Rick sighs, his mind felt as clear as ever, knowing with great certainty in this moment what his body desired.  A kit is the main occupant of his thoughts, frightened by the tightness with which the omegan need to care and breed weaves itself between his ribs. He thinks of his daughter, how grown and bright she must be now. The first nights without her had been crushingly painful; his chest leaking with sweet milk, no kit to suckle and feed, no small body to hold nestled against his chest. He battles it daily, locked his need to breed up like a vicious sharp toothed beast inside an iron cage. The heat suppressants helped him forget, helped him covertly hide it, but it still remained a little determined whisper at the back of his skull, often unheard as he frequently ignored it. Heat unleashed the beast, tearing open the bars of its cage, taking free roam of Rick’s conscious. He hears its loud clear roar, screaming for a kit. It’s a cry for action—a cry of war—and Rick is ready to head its call.

“You gotta—Pers—you gotta put a baby in me, you gotta fucking knock me up. I-I wanna have your bird babies.” Scientifically and rationally, he comprehends their species might not even hold the compatibility to breed, but science and rationality in his heat blurred thoughts are not something he clings too. He **needs** a kit—now—need one like he needs the acrid burn of alcohol down his throat, and the light headed buzz that comes with it.

“I cannot allow that to happen, Rick.”

“Why the f-fuck not!?” Anger consumes him and to his horror tears spring to life, wetting his lashes and staining his cheeks. Rick Sanchez didn’t fucking cry. He rubs frustrated at his cheeks, shoulders beginning to quake with the onslaught of his emotions. Birdperson rubs careful fat thumbs beneath his eyes, swiping away the shameful evidence of his tears. It’s not an act he would normally allow, none of this is anything he would allow in a sane state, but with his heightened hormones he purrs, leaning into Pers’ welcoming touch.

“You cannot properly consent in your heated state and I cannot mindfully take you against your will.”

He loathes the force with which Birdperson cares for his well being—but Pers always cared about him, whether it be blocking a Federation laser pistol from burning a hole through Rick’s gut or stroking Rick’s hair while he puked out a hangover, Pers always had his best interest in mind. Yet, he understands vaguely, through the pink haze that swallows him, that he’ll be grateful for it when all of this is over. He remembers his first heat, how his body had screamed out for something he wasn’t ready to handle. He remembers the alpha, a stranger leading him into his car, the feel of the first knot he ever took, the painful stretch of it, his body burning and yearning for it while his mind quietly protested, only pleas of unwanted pleasure escaping his lips. His mother had told him later how lucky he was that the alpha hadn’t marked him as their mate—but he didn’t feel lucky. And even if the alpha had marked him, he wouldn’t have stayed someone’s property for long. He would’ve eventually fled. He always fled. But never when it came to Birdperson. The anxious itch to run never found him in Birdperson’s presence, he felt comfortable stationary—terrified by the mundane safety he offered.

“I need i-it, baby-babe, I n-need you,” Rick whines, loathing the high pitched crack of his voice. He’s no better than a bitch in heat—literally.

“Lay back, Rick,” Pers says softly, large palm pressing lightly at Rick’s shoulder. Rick eagerly lies back against the sweat stained pillow, mattress creaking beneath the shift of his weight. Adrenalin spikes through Rick like a fleeting high, excitement sending his heart beating rapidly against the cage of his ribs. It’s happening, what he’s waited the last countless hours for, his legs falling open with anticipation of Birdperson pressing home, filling him just right and emptying his seed into Rick’s waiting aching womb.

Rick moans, impatiently grabbing out to draw Pers over him.

Birdperson sits nestled between the curve of Rick’s thighs, face portraying little emotion, but Rick sees a subtle hue of pink and red creep across the high planes of his cheek bones. He thinks within it lies victory, until Pers speaks, initiating Rick’s defeat, “Within my culture to take advantage of your current state would be highly immoral, but if it will help ease what you are feeling I am willing to pleasure you with my hand.”

…

Birdperson works him open with his fingers, solid and certain in his movements—assured in his knowledge of Rick’s body and likes—a bead of sweat working down his nose and he hovers over Rick’s body. Rick cants his hips against them, demanding more, heals digging into the matters as he claws frantically at Pers’ wrist, trying to draw him in deeper.

His chest rises and falls, quickened gasps of breath as his lungs battle for oxygen. He grits his teeth, lashes blurry with the onslaught of fresh tears, “I-It’s not enough—fuck—I n-need more of you.”

He’s starved. Desperate.

A third finger slips in to join the two tightly nestled within the heat of Rick’s entrance and Rick relishes the stretch of it, the void within him only partly filled. He needs dick. He needs seed. He needs a knot. Two of the three Pers is perfectly capable—however, unwilling—to provide. A whisper of panic, flutters softly through his chest, his omegan need crying out for more. Rick rocks back on Birdperson’s hand until he’s knuckle deep, Rick’s nails digging crescent moons into the hefty trunk of Pers’ forearm.

He’s close to coming already, heat leaving him oversensitive, dick twitching and leaking against his belly. And then Birdperson curves his fingers, scissoring them against Rick’s walls and he comes undone, every muscle in his body clenching with it. Eyes unfocused and brow furrowed as he arches up and cries out. The blissful feel of it only lasting a few moments in his fraught exhaustion, he collapses back, struggling to steady his breathing as he releases his dangerous hold on Pers’ arm.

Birdperson’s fingers slip out as he wipes Rick’s slick free of them on the wrinkled bed sheets. Rick already mourns their loss, cold and aching for fulfillment.

“Don’t—“ Rick starts, tiredly grasping at Pers’ feathers as he makes turn to rise, “leave.”

“I will repeat myself a second time if I must Rick, I will not mate with you in this situation.”

It’s a regret he’ll live with when the heat is fading, when he wakes too sober and sore for any of this. He’ll loath Pers for using the word ‘mate’ instead of fuck, he’ll loath himself for letting the vulnerability he spent years building walls around show. “J-just stay with me, I-I don’t wanna be alone. It f-fucking sucks doing this alone.”

…

Perhaps it’s an unwise decision, to have the object of his desire so unattainable and close, but there is a certain comfort and reassurance in the weight of another body next to his. Pers’ wing fanned out over his frame as he writhes against the sheets, Birdperson’s wide and smart fingers bringing him to another climax.

It isn’t ideal—not nearly enough—but it’s relief, and he grateful as he sobs out a moan, clinging to the wide span of Pers’ wings.

…

Moonlight filters in through their small bedroom widow, casting long eerie shadows across the span of the floor. Rick groans cracking open a wary eye. The entirety of his being aches and protests as he moves out from beneath the welcoming warmth of Birdperson’s snoring body.

But he knows with great clarity, it’s over. His heat has passed. His head throbs as he sits up, as wobbly as a new born calf as he stands on his unused legs. And although Rick knows Squanchy or Pers will offer him no judgment, he doesn’t want to face either of them when they wake. Humiliated in the fault of emotion his body wrought.

Slowly, he pats bare foot and naked across the bedroom floor, crossing the living room to catch sight of Squanchy, face first asleep in the couch.

 He’s eager to scrub the stickiness of heat from his skin.

…

He runs water in the tub after he pees, would shower if his legs would allow it, but it will take time for his body to regain the strength heat drained from him. The water is welcomed relief as his slips in, soothing the aches of his muscles and bones. If only he were the wicked witch of the west and water could melt him from all of existence. He wants to disappear—hide from what heat made him become. He sinks beneath the surface, letting his body float weightless and buoyant, dreamlike as he opens his eyes and gazes up through the washed out blur of the water’s edge. It’s like being born again, baptismal, not that Rick believed in any of the holy bullshit.

A figure comes into view, shimmering and cracking as the water dances in his vision.

“Rick,” He hears the call of his name, deafened by the denseness of the water. With a gasp he sits upright, breaking the water’s surface like glass.

“W-what the hell do you want, Pers?” Ricks grabs the bottle of shampoo from the edge of the tub, emptying a large glob of it into his waiting palm, his long fingers working through the knots in his hair.

He can’t meet Pers’ eyes, knows they’ll be all to welcoming, soft, and forgiving. But he can’t forgive himself, going through heat was like ripping open a fresh wound, picking the scab open over and over again, and not even a band aid can staunch the heavy flow of blood. He begged for a kit, and Rick Sanchez never fucking begged. And perhaps the most horrifying aspect is even without the haze of his addled heat, the idea of growing fat with Birdperson’s kit seems so appealing. He tells himself it’s just the afterglow, the tingle after a hard slap, slowly but surely it will fade. It has too. His pride won’t allow him to accept the truth and he wonders vaguely what would happen if he stopped hiding from it.

 “I was concerned for your welfare.”

“I’m up and walking, a-aren’t I?” Rick hisses, dunking under the water a second time when his hair is thoroughly suds.

“I see that you have managed to walk here without assistance but are you well?” Pers asks, hovering over him like a mother hen. He always fucking hovered.

“I’m f-fine,” Rick sighs, because he won’t say otherwise. That he feels vulnerable and afraid for the first time in years, bare not only in body but in soul. It’s frustrating—unsettling—to feel what he felt as a child again. There was no strength in the capacity of his want.

“How l-long was I out for?” He asks.

“Seventy eight hours.”

His crushing exhaustion makes perfect sense. Heat within itself is a tiring experience for an omega, both emotionally and physically. Heat could be deadly, and to withstand a heat thrice the length of the average cycle could take a dangerous toll on an omega’s wellbeing, not only for the risk of dehydration and starvation but also the mental effect it could have on an omega’s mind. Rick didn’t believe in luck or miracles, it wasn’t luck that led him to forget his pills, it was a mere chance that his body managed to survive this.

He grabs a bar of soap from the tub’s shelf, tossing it carelessly in Birdperson’s direction. Agile and quick as ever Pers catches it expertly, “Wash m-my back will, ya?”

It’s an intimate process, far more intimate than fucking or sharing the same bed. Birdperson’s hands strong and clever as they work suds over his shoulder blades, smoothing out the tense muscles of his back. It happens before Rick can swallow it down, an omegan purr vibrating within him, echoing off the tiled walls. A noise meant to comfort one’s kit or alpha, or to display how calm and reassured mate is making one feel. It’s shocking in the peace it brings him, infuriating because he no longer has his heat to blame for it. It’s a matter of his own weak reserve.

Thankfully, Birdperson offers no comment at the noise, letting Rick silently seethe with it.

Pers helps him stand, arm around Rick’s back as he leans over to scrub his legs, washing away the dried slick stuck like paste to his skin. Birdperson does not object to Rick’s closeness nor the wetness of his frame as water runs rivulets down his arms, seeping into the silken softness of Pers’ feathers.

The skin of Rick’s toes wrinkle, pruned in their over saturation, he wiggles them against the feel of it, numbly watching soapy water glide down the curves of his thin calves, collecting and bubbling around the sharp bones of his ankles. He blinks as they pop against his legs hair, eye lids slow and heavy in their movements.

When his legs are no longer able to hold his weight, he settles down into the nest of the tub, water lapping up against his skin. He sighs, thumping his head against the wall.

“Do you need my assistance in getting back to the bedroom?”

 “I-I just want to fucking chill for a minute.”

Birdperson stays perched on the tub’s edge, voiceless in his concern as he watches Rick sink chin deep into the water. Rick knows no matter how greatly he protests it, Pers will refuse to leave his side until his condition has returned to average. The room is quiet, the sound of their collective breaths the only reprieve to the silence, the occasional chime from the leaky faucet as water droplets fell, painting patterns in the bath’s translucent surface. His eyes drift shut, lashes ticklish on his wet cheeks. Darkness slips over him like a thick blanket, all encompassing and smothering. He fades into the feel of it, the tender caress of water against his skin, the slow timed rise and fall of each breath he draws in, the steady rhythm of his heart as it thumps rhythmically within the home of his chest.

It’s a serene lullaby, overly tender in its sound, he drifts to sea on it, only pulled to land when a large palm cups his cheek.

He cracks open his heavy eyes, meeting Pers’ dark gaze.

“You are beautiful, Rick,” Birdperson says and Rick chuckles, the force of it hurting his sides.

“Y-yeah, no shit?” Rick grins, because he never for a moment doubted his personal appearance. Sure his personality might be shit and he drank and burped **way** too much, but at least he had his looks. He ignores however, the giddy flip his stomach gives at Pers’ words, blaming it on his hunger.

Birdperson hesitates for a moment, a brief flicker of something—an internal struggle Rick thinks—dancing across his otherwise unreadable features. He tips Rick’s chin up, forcing their eyes to meet for the first time since Rick begged for a kit. Never one to back away from a challenge Rick glares back, swallowing hard against the sudden lump in his throat.

“I consider you my soulbond, Rick. In my culture you are what I would call, my other half.”

Time stills for Rick, shatters and collapses in on him. He can’t breathe, his heart lodged up in his throat. A soulbond for Pers was the equivalent of a mate for him—an alpha who would mark and imprint on him.  Warmth unfurls in Rick’s chest, creeping up his neck, staining his cheeks and ears a deep vibrant red. He panics, fight or flight kicking in, and his mind screams fight. He grasps furiously at the shampoo bottle, tossing at Pers’ head. His target fails however for Pers catches the bottle mid toss, carefully setting it on the tiled floor at his side.

“Are you under distress, Rick?”

“Why do you always fucking assume I’m upset?!” Always with the fucking concern. His omegan heart races, driven on by the allure of a soulbond. He despises it. He didn’t mate. He didn’t bond. He didn’t need people. He kept Birdperson and Squanchy around strictly for their convenience, not to fill the lonely void that carved an empty painful hole in his chest. The weak omega within him sparks to life, cries out with a loud and fiery passion, the deep rooted desire for him to mate and settle down coming to life. Unnerving that after the loss of his heat it finds a powerful voice with quick and clever vigor, _‘You need a mate like you need beer every night.’_

Fucking. Bullshit.

He stands on shaky legs, steadying his palms on the broad width of Pers’ shoulders. “You gonna fucking c-carry me to the bedroom or what, big guy?”

…

Their watching TV on the couch, Rick hungrily devouring his third bowl of cereal while Birdperson rests a soothing hand on the sharp edge of his knee, Rick tries not to show—to accept—how much the weight of it comforts him. But content in the feel of it, he rests his cheek on Pers’ shoulder, letting the empty cereal both rest comfortably in his lap.

“What kinda squanched up business did you two get down to in the bathroom? You’re acting beyond squanched right now.” Squanchy says, eyeing Rick suspiciously from his position on the couch. Rick wonders if  he sees right through him, can hear how fast Rick heart races at Pers’ close warmth, hear the little voice inside of Rick chiming an unrelenting reminder, _‘Mate with him. Mate with Pers. Mate. Mate. Mate.’_  Rick isn’t sure how much longer he wants to fight against it. It’s tiring, constantly pretending.

But for a moment he keeps up the veil up—unwilling yet to give up his internal struggle—ignoring his omegan voice as he flips Squanchy off, secretly relishing as Pers’ squeezes his knee just a little tighter. Because Birdperson felt like home.

…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


End file.
